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Sample Worship Service 2016-17 Guest at Your Table Sample Worship Service 2016-17 Table of Contents Guest at Your Table Theme I. Chalice Lighting Defying the Nazis: The Sharps’ War, the Ken Burns PBS II. Defying Hate Sermon documentary about UUSC’s founders, is timely, given the III. Moment for All Ages unprecedented number of refugees and asylum seekers fleeing violence and political crisis today. IV. Offertory V. Chalice Extinguishing This year’s Guest at Your Table theme is Defying Hate, and VI. Suggested Hymns and the program focuses on UUSC’s work to protect human rights Readings in the face of hate, Islamophobia, and other forms of bigotry. I. Chalice Lighting for the Sharp Family Waitstill and Martha Sharp, a Unitarian minister and his wife, responded to the escalating aggression of Nazi German by traveling to Europe and putting their own lives at risk—at a time before many Americans realized the situation was so desperate. The Sharps left their young children behind before Germany invaded Czechoslovakia—3 years before the United States became involved in the war. They contacted the U.S. government with updates and urged them to accept more refugees—at a time when many Americans felt we should not open our doors at all. They practiced great generosity and courage. This light represents what the Sharps, just two people, were able to accomplish—and what all of us can accomplish together. II. Sermon – “Who is our neighbor? How do we welcome the stranger?” Adapted from a sermon by Rev. Joan Javier Duvall, Minister in Montpelier, VT A familiar biblical story to many of us is the parable of the Good Samaritan. In this age-old teaching tale from the Gospel of Luke, a man is traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho when he is attacked by robbers. He is beaten, stripped of his clothes, and left on the side of the road. First, a priest comes across him. The priest crosses to the other side of the road and keeps going. A Levite then comes across him and does the same. These were supposed to be especially religious and pious men in the Jewish community, so the story takes a twist when a Samaritan, someone an ordinary Jewish person would have regarded with contempt, stops and helps the man, bandaging his wounds and taking him to a nearby inn where he can recover. With his simple action, the Samaritan defies hate in that moment. Just like the parable of the Good Samaritan, the story of the Alamours, a family who relocated to Southern California from Syria and described feeling “alone” in the United States, challenges us to reflect on who our neighbors are. Who do we consider to be “one of us”? How do we extend a welcome 2 to those who are different from ourselves? Many religious traditions teach us to love our neighbors, though this is often easier said than done. The Alamours fled their home city of Daraa, Syria, after the government responded to protests against Bashar al-Assad with tanks, helicopters, and troops. They escaped to Jordan just before their home was destroyed by the civil war. In Jordan, they were safe, but they couldn’t work or gain legal status. After three years in limbo, they were resettled by the United States to southern California, but they still face isolation in a new country and are haunted by the violence and fear that caused them to flee their beloved home. Engaging with the story of the Alamour family, we must grapple with the reality of trauma and exclusion faced by many people who are displaced. One of our central religious tasks is to put ourselves in others’ shoes to try to understand the particular suffering they might be facing. The Alamours carry with them the trauma of leaving behind all that is familiar and witnessing violence and terrorism in what was once their safe home. In addition to being in a new and unfamiliar land, they now face a society where many regard them as suspect and their religion as reprehensible. One way we can defy hate is by engaging in the embodied care of people we don’t know or who are unfamiliar to us. Our faith teaches us that we are called to action in the here and now. We do not wait for salvation to come in the hereafter. Instead, we can embody love today by caring for and offering hospitality to the stranger. Through our acts of care and generosity, we begin to forge relationships that resist the forces that alienate and instead invite us into mutual understanding and support. We can also defy hate by taking responsibility for The Reverend Joan Javier-Duval began her the culture we live in and resisting those voices ministry at the Unitarian Church of Montpelier that speak from a place of hate and fear instead of (UCM) in August 2015. She was born and raised acceptance and love. Speaking out against hate, in Chicago, Ill., the daughter of immigrants from especially in this politically charged atmosphere, the Philippines. She is a 2003 graduate of is an important action. Our words matter, and we Swarthmore College and earned her Master of can choose whether they will be used as weapons Divinity degree in 2012 from Yale Divinity to tear people down or as tools to build Beloved School. Community. Before responding to her call to ministry, Rev. To defy hate is to promote an expansive notion of Joan followed a call to public service as a inclusion and welcome with our actions and with community and political organizer and nonprofit our words. It is to extend the universal love that is leader. Joan organized young voters in New in us and surrounds us to all we encounter, Mexico, fought for workers’ rights in Boston, especially those who live on the margins of Mass., and trained progressive political leaders society. We can speak out, both in our public and in Washington, DC. She also volunteered her private lives, against hateful rhetoric that maligns time serving the Asian-American community as Muslims, recent immigrants, and refugees. We an advocate for women’s rights and immigrant can fill the nooks and crannies of public and and worker justice. In these contexts and through private discourse with words of welcome and her ministerial training, Rev. Joan developed her inclusion, saying with conviction that there is passion and dedication to social and economic room for all, that there is no one way to worship, justice, anti-racism and anti-oppression, and and that our differences are not to be feared but creating Beloved Community. embraced. UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST SERVICE COMMITTEE 689 Massachusetts Avenue ● Cambridge, MA 02139-3302 ● 617-868-6600 ● fax: 617-868-7102 www.uusc.org 3 This may require courage at times, when the voices of hatred are so loud and so violent. Yet, the Alamours’ story beckons us to respond decisively. We must remember that the work of defying hate is not ours to take up alone. In community, we strengthen one another and find the resolve to continue. We co-create with one another and with the spirit of life a world more just, more compassionate, and more loving. III. Moment for All Ages Carly Cronon, Associate for Congregational Giving Programs, UUSC Not too long ago, there were laws about where people could go to school, which buses they could take, and whom they could marry, all based on the color of their skin. Not too long ago, we went to war with other countries, and people in charge made posters with words and pictures that made the “other side” seem evil because of the way they looked. I think today we’re doing better than that. You wouldn’t be able to draw a picture making fun of someone’s skin color or religion and paste it on your classroom wall—your teacher wouldn’t allow it. But we still have a long way to go. Today, what you look like and where you’re from still affect the jobs you can get, who gets forgiven when they break the law, what is considered a crime, who’s able to feel safe when they walk around outside, and more. Haiti and the Dominican Republic are two countries on an island south of Florida (show Hispaniola on a map). Recently, people in the Dominican Republic have been having trouble with jobs and money. The government has been blaming those problems on people living in the Dominican Republic whose families are from Haiti—like if you live in the United States but your grandparents are from Italy. These people, including kids, are blamed, and then many of them are forced to leave their homes and go to Haiti. Usually, they are picked out because they have a darker skin color. Does anyone know where their relatives are from? Where are your parents’ parents’ from? Have you ever been there? (Wait for answers. If none of the kids know, briefly share where your relatives are from.) How would you feel if you were sent back to that place? (Or describe how you would feel.) Maybe you would feel happy and excited at first, since it’s fun Carly helps connect UUSC with to visit other countries, but you would probably feel scared if congregations throughout the you were sent alone, or didn’t know the local language, and if United States, particularly through you weren’t allowed to come back home. This is what’s the Guest at Your Table and happening to many kids in the Dominican Republic.
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